Landscape Handshake

     An engaging scene occurred on a recent episode of QI, which made me think about landscapes. Each person around the panel turned to the person on their right and shook hands with them, telling them somebody famous whom they had previously shaken the hand of. So one might say "David Beckham" or "Ian McKellen", the idea being that, somehow, the glory and reverence attributed to that handshake was passed on to the current shaker. In that way, people on the panel felt a connection with somebody in whom their lives they had never met, or even been in close proximity to, or who had perhaps died before they were born.

 In a similar way, our landscapes connect us to creatures and times of a distance greater than we could ever otherwise bridge. Landscape is the handshake to the cultures and wildernesses of the past, and forward to the unknown. We mould a little of it now, by step or sow, but that same little may also have been moulded by Mayans, or giant reptiles, or prehistoric fish swimming prehistoric streams.

 I recently heard a story of a road trip through the southern states. A comically nondescript sign on the long road said "DINO TRAX". The trippers took the turn, anticipating little. And in the dusty, sun baked ancient land, manned by indigenous peoples, huge Tyrannosaurus claw-prints punctuated the terrain. Immovable. From another age. And as clear as the visitors walking all over them, their own miniscule imprints in the dust serving to strengthen the wonder at the colossal being there before. The deliberate Indians, explaining the history of the region, offset the curiosity of the episode. One land-tied culture explaining another, several million years later, on a bit of mineral just the same; maybe a little drier. How naturally weird. 

 This landscape handshake is perhaps also demonstrated by the fossil towns in Eastern Morocco. The tourist (you, or me) is dropped by in-league bus drivers to their preferred fossil emporium. Polished ammonites abound; made into bowls, necklaces, tables - striking, functional and another curious juxtaposition. Remnants of ancient life shaped into things I can wear around my neck in this century, warming them up to life-temperature with the heat coming from my chest. 

 Then you step outside into the bright yellow light and black shadows. You casually look at the tools and machinery used for carving, shaping and polishing the treasures from the rocks in the Atlas and Anti-Atlas. And behind you, leant up against the wall, is it - the showstopper.

 A gigantic slab with trilobites immobilised forever in its rigid lattice, but looking as if they are swarming all over the rock, just as they were, two hundred and fifty million years ago. The Muslim fossil emporium owner steps out with a bottle of water, and he shakes it out over the rock to make the things glisten. The tourist looks up and out across the old dry landscape to the distant mountain slopes... thoughts swarming now too.

 Someone might walk for several hours through a national park or reserve or even a wilderness, and reach a notable feature. It could be a tall and looming granite pinnacle, with scratches. It could be a pile of dry dusty gravel. It could be a rough circle of old tree stumps. It could be a grey cliff-top seat, worn smooth with sitting. They are intrinsic to the landscape and they are the messages left in it ... Hi! We were here once too!